(No Rest For The Buckaneer) Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii

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Yeah, this one had a really slow start. It relied too much on stretches of cutscenes to patter the total gametime. Thankfully, I could tell the difference between the one told in my PS5, and in-game. For those achievement hunters, a bit of PSA about the HLTB site ratings.

But man, there are so many mini-games to try in this one. Myriads of things to do, like being an animal caretaker, bounty hunting, photo shots of attraction sites to snaps of weirdos posing in gym shorts and butterfly masks to, well, finding treasures in Honolulu while riding a street surfer (segways). Look, I get that some of the stuff was in Infinite Wealth, but I didn't play that yet.

What I am disappointed with, outside the lackluster main story, is the combat, seemingly neutered. The crazy, cool stuff in the upgrade menu are stupidly expensive. I get Majima is old, but there are 1/5 of the moves here compared to 0. Everybody makes that comparison.

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When I arrived at Honolulu with Noah and Goro, we picked up trouble from the get-go, soon as we arrived at Revolve Bar is where I was told to make some friends by KSON. Meaning, I have to gesture Aloha for every NPC with a smiley on top of their heads.

To the spirit of Hawaii, we venture out, save up some animals and adopt them for our benevolent co-captain, Goro the cat. Even greeted with a segway salesman and he gave us free Surfers. Of course, the dividends made from fuelling it is a whole other thing. Ah, it's like going on a vacation trip, I can put the decor on my ship, and play dress-up with Majima and Goro.

Just one problem, much like poor munchkin above, my wallet size is too petit. Almost like I am encouraged to plunder and pillage my way to fortune in order to buy all the expensive stuff in the city. Adding more insult to the knee, is the crazy ability upgrade costs.

There's a lot to do, outside of bounty hunting not much for money, but helping people and interacting with them, whereas most of them in return join my crew. I need crew members, I can't just invade ships and looting treasures from every island without the needed manpower. There's a lot I did. First start was completing a 1-shot pool challenge on normal.

Funny enough, after finishing first recruit's request, I got the sleep goat suit guy after accruing points from playing pool. So that's like two birds, one game? Hired a homeless guy by cooking him my special Majima bear. Helping Julia has allowed me to use parts to unlock stronger cannons and turrets for my ship. Then the funniest thing happened, Majima got scammed into a VR device that, ah, lets him talk to animals, starting with Goro. Who's a girl now.

And no, it thankfully doesn't go where you think it does. From here on out, I've realized it's nothing like 0 because everything is so goofy, ahhh, energy, it kept me laughing till I started fighting the thugs on the streets. The gleeful insanity of this game knew no bounds.

Now let's talk about Sicko Snap, you literally go on a tour ride from a bus and take pictures of dude appearing on different parts of the town. They're buffed up dudes wearing gym shorts, and they pop up like wack'o'moles for cameras. I had to convince a runaway monkey to come down by doing all manner of silly things. Before giving us 1000 yards stare. He joined my animal kingdom too.

Also, Majima is overpowered as hell, even in his basic form. He is swinging, jumping, spinning, zip, zapping, this is Looney Tunes level of combat we're talking about here. I know he has an ultimate where he summons clones of himself, but those guys basically take the trash out by themselves. I don't need to do the work. Not only that, but I feel mostly sorry for anyone who even fights me.

This is all in normal difficulty, the one I've played consistently throughout the series, and I know most of the fights would hand my butt over multiple times. Here, it's by a few accidental mistakes or the fact that I wasn't even trying hard enough.

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Look, I can talk about his pirate stance, and how his ultimate is using 4 cursed instruments to summon various animal deities, absolutely making the enemies look like mincemeat. But that's for maybe some time in the future. For the most part, it's the adventure.

The mid-point of the game is Majima sealing his relationship with a 10-year kid, trying to uphold a positive viewpoint in life despite how grueling and terrible things cane be. Noah has a respiratory illness that brought everybody, including Noah's father, along with the crew searching for the biggest treasure out there. Not a good plot to start with, but that elixir isn't waiting, either.

There's a lot of interesting people I met in Hawaii, and yeah they have the same plot development as prior Yakuza games do, the difference is how Majima approached those, not Kiryu. I even like how you can pick different dialogues or choose to react to a quicktime event. Creating multiple pathways into how each substories end. Tho, I wish amnesiac Majima was a little crazier.

Lastly, I did manage to get around enough crews and muster strength in the ship. These frigates are nothing to the might of the Goromaru. I know tougher fights are coming. But for now, I'm just shooting BB pallets, and not enough compartmentalizing damage.

It mostly ran fine, but dear god, it was absurdly bright in Hawaii. The whole asset reusing thing is getting old and the lackluster visual presentation in other areas isn't helping either. Do note, this is from PS5, I could raise the antialiasing, and it be a different game.

My issue with the game is how long it really takes to get the ball rolling. I was playing the story while doing the side stuff half the time. Before realizing cutscenes were so long, it took almost half the game time. That would make it 20hrs longer than what HLTB estimated. Really wish they gave a disclaimer on that. And yeah, story isn't that great and kind of drags on.

But I feel like it's going to be worth it. This is a Majima adventure's game through and through. There's more I didn't get around to talking like Dragon Karts, how OP the cursed abilities are, the insane fighting skills I will get to use. Majima's journey is just starting for me.

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